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Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that it will take up the Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association case. This landmark case challenges the ability of unions to collect dues from employees who may not wish to be a part of the union or object to the use of their dues on issues which they fundamentally disagree with. This case lays out a First Amendment freedom of speech challenge to the long standing forced unionism policy.

Thousands of Washington and Oregon educators who don’t want union representation and don’t want to pay union dues are forced to do so because of state laws made possible by the Supreme Court’s 1977 Abood decision. The Supreme Court signaled this week that it may be prepared to strike down this anti-teacher choice practice once and for all.

In the clamor surrounding STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) education and the importance of preparing students for a tech-centered world, some stakeholders may be tempted to push other subjects aside. This would be a mistake, argues Fareed Zakaria in his new book In Defense of a Liberal Education.